Vipassana

Dr. Ochester’s preferred form of meditation for her personal practice is vipassana or “insight meditation”. In the US we tend to recognize this as “mindfulness meditation”.

In a 2012 report on a meta-analysis prepared by the Johns Hopkins University Evidence-based Practice Center, mindfulness meditation was found to have “moderate strength of effectiveness” in improvement of anxiety, depression, and pain.

Vipassana involves sustained attention to breathing, thoughts, feelings, and body sensations toward the direct, experiential perception of the present moment. Through consistent practice we may clear away obscurations in order to see things without illusion and reduce suffering.

Visit our Guided Meditation page for a number of resources for starting a meditation practice.

The documentary Doing Time, Doing Vipassana, available on YouTube, shows how inmates in Tihar prison in India learn to practice this ancient meditation technique to channel their minds toward the good.

The documentary The Dhamma Brothers shows the same transformation happening in a US prison and is available on Netflix and iTunes.